Children's Development as Participation in Everyday Practices across Different Institutions

Children participate in different institutional collectives in their everyday life. Home, school, and kindergarten are the institutional contexts that most children share. Although there are variations between home practices and school practices, they collectively share a common core framed by societal conditions. In drawing upon Vygotsky's (1998) Vygotsky, L. S. 1998. The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky (M. J. Hall, Trans., Vol. 5, Child Psychology), New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.  [Google Scholar] theory of the social situation of development and Hedegaard's (2009) Hedegaard, M. 2009. “Children's development from a cultural-historical approach: Children's activity in everyday local settings as foundation for their development”. In Mind, Culture, and Activity Vol. 16, 64–82. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar] theory of development conceptualised as the child's participation within and across several institutions at the same time, it has been possible to examine how school practices influence home practice and the child's social situation of development. A case study of an Australian child's participation across different institutions (family and school) was undertaken to capture and analyse the dynamic processes through which development was afforded. In the case study there was a large disjunction between institutional practices of the home and school that the child had to negotiate. Due to teacher knowledge of only the child's relation to the school institution, and not the home institution, the affordances for development and the child's changing relations to his environment, were invisible to the educators in this study. The findings suggest foregrounding an understanding of children's development as changes in children's activities and thereby changing their relations to reality across institutional practices in order to support a broader view of development in early childhood education.     

Perceptions of and reactions to leader toxicity: Do leader–follower relationships and identification with victim matter?

This experimental study examined the influence of leader–follower relationships (i.e., LMX) and target salience on perceptions of leader toxicity and intentions to challenge the leader. There are no studies that evaluate the effect of leader–follower relationships on these two variables. Participants (n = 298) with work experience viewed a video of a leader acting in a destructive manner toward a target. As predicted, LMX out-group participants perceived the leader to be toxic to a greater extent than participants with favored status, and indicated greater intent to challenge the leader. With regard to target salience, the results also showed that observers perceived the leader to be toxic to a greater extent when the leader was targeting someone in their LMX grouping, but there were no significant differences in challenging intentions based on the target's LMX status. Implications for leaders, followers, and organizations are discussed.     

Comparaison des représentations des amish et des mormons fondamentalistes (FLDS) dans deux téléréalités américaines

This research explores the representations of two minority religions in United States, the Amish and the fundamentalist Mormons (FLDS), in two reality shows produced in 2013: Breaking Amish and Breaking the Faith. To which extent these reality shows contribute to reinforce stereotypes about these minority religions? The hypothesis postulates that there is a convergence in the representations of minority religions in these reality shows which contributes to the reproduction of stereotypes. Based on theories of identity construction and on the study of new religious movements, the analysis shows that the same guiding lines are recurrent in both reality shows.     

Has the HIV Epidemic Peaked?

This study reviews the highly diverse regional and country patterns of HIV epidemics and discusses possible causes of the geographic variation in epidemic sizes. Past trends and projections of the epidemics are presented and the peak years of epidemics are estimated. The potential future impact of new prevention technologies is briefly assessed. A final section summarizes the future impact of the epidemic on key demographic variables. The main finding of this analysis is that the HIV epidemic reached a major turning point over the past decade. The peak years of HIV incidence rates are past for all regions, and the peaks of prevalence rates are mostly in the past except in Eastern Europe, where they are expected to peak in 2008. But owing in part to the life‐prolonging effect of antiretroviral therapy and to sustained population growth, the absolute number of infected individuals is expected to keep growing slowly in sub‐Saharan Africa and to remain near current levels worldwide, thus posing a continuing challenge to public health programs. No country is expected to see a decline in its population size between 2005 and 2050 that is attributable to high mortality related to AIDS.     

Remember the curse of dimensionality: the case of goodness-of-fit testing in arbitrary dimension

Despite a substantial literature on nonparametric two-sample goodness-of-fit testing in arbitrary dimensions, there is no mention there of any curse of dimensionality. In fact, in some publications, a parametric rate is derived. As we discuss below, this is because a directional alternative is considered. Indeed, even in dimension one, Ingster, Y. I. [(1987). Minimax testing of nonparametric hypotheses on a distribution density in the l_p metrics. Theory of Probability & Its Applications, 31(2), 333–337] has shown that the minimax rate is not parametric. In this paper, we extend his results to arbitrary dimension and confirm that the minimax rate is not only nonparametric, exhibits but also a prototypical curse of dimensionality. We further extend Ingster's work to show that the chi-squared test achieves the minimax rate. Moreover, we show that the test adapts to the intrinsic dimensionality of the data. Finally, in the spirit of Ingster, Y. I. [(2000). Adaptive chi-square tests. Journal of Mathematical Sciences, 99(2), 1110–1119], we consider a multiscale version of the chi-square test, showing that one can adapt to unknown smoothness without much loss in power.     

Effects of Parental Divorce on God Image Among Young Adults at a Christian University

We used path analysis to investigate the impact of parental divorce on God image, mediated by father–child and mother–child attachments, among 178 college students at a Christian university. Findings revealed that parental divorce negatively impacts father–child attachment; however, father–child attachment does not impact God image. Instead, the quality of mother–child attachment, which does not seem to be influenced by parental divorce, best predicts the development of a healthy God image. Thus, preliminary findings elucidated that parental divorce undermines the quality of attachment between father and child but not mother and child, and mother–child attachment ultimately influences God image. Further research is needed to replicate and generalize these preliminary findings.     

Book Reviews

In censuses and surveys in most African countries it has become the practice to estimate informants' age by the method of the historical calendar. This involves an attempt to relate a remembered historical event, occurring during the subject's childhood, with his age at the time.

This paper attempts a first evaluation of the method with particular reference to the 1961–63 multi-round survey in rural Morocco. It is shown that in practice the method is highly complex and easily misunderstood by interviewers and respondents. An attempt to lay down a precise procedure by means of a very detailed questionnaire appeared to yield at best only marginally more accurate results than the simpler procedure used in an earlier round. The more complex questionnaire did, however, introduce new patterns of misuse by the interviewer. There was evidence that the historical calendar gave somewhat better data than eye estimates, but results were highly defective for both methods.

It is clear that the method is far from perfect. Interviewer training and supervision remain the key to accurate age determination. If the potential benefits of the complex historical calendar method are to be realized, training and supervision need to be even more thorough than where simpler methods are used.     

Probabilistic Projections of the Total Fertility Rate for All Countries

We describe a Bayesian projection model to produce country-specific projections of the total fertility rate (TFR) for all countries. The model decomposes the evolution of TFR into three phases: pre-transition high fertility, the fertility transition, and post-transition low fertility. The model for the fertility decline builds on the United Nations Population Division’s current deterministic projection methodology, which assumes that fertility will eventually fall below replacement level. It models the decline in TFR as the sum of two logistic functions that depend on the current TFR level, and a random term. A Bayesian hierarchical model is used to project future TFR based on both the country’s TFR history and the pattern of all countries. It is estimated from United Nations estimates of past TFR in all countries using a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm. The post-transition low fertility phase is modeled using an autoregressive model, in which long-term TFR projections converge toward and oscillate around replacement level. The method is evaluated using out-of-sample projections for the period since 1980 and the period since 1995, and is found to be well calibrated.     

Supplemental Retirement Savings Plans in the Public Sector: Participation and Contribution Decisions by School Personnel

Virtually all full-time state and local government employees are covered by a retirement plan, typically a defined benefit plan, in which they are required to participate. In addition, most school employees have the option of choosing to contribute to a voluntary retirement savings plan offered by their school district. Relative to private sector workers, public employees face an expanded choice of retirement savings plans. Federal tax policies allow state and local governments the opportunity to offer both 401(k) plans and 457 plans to their employees. In addition to these plans, public schools and certain other organizations can offer 403(b) plans to their employees. This paper examines the decision to participate in a voluntary savings plan and the level of contributions for those that enroll in at least one of the plans. The analysis begins by describing the savings options available to public school employees and how these plans differ. The findings indicate that the same economic and demographic factors that influence saving decisions by private workers also drive the decisions of school employees. The three savings plans offered to public employees have many similar characteristics; however, several differences in the plans imply that certain workers may prefer one plan type over the others. Probit and Tobit models of participation in any plan and total annual contributions are estimated. Finally, we estimate the determinants of the decision to choose any one or a combination of savings plans.